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12-27-2020
How Scripture and Authority Are Understood by Teachers in How Scripture and Authority Are Understood by Teachers in Adventist Schools in Australia and the Solomon Islands Adventist Schools in Australia and the Solomon Islands
Robert K. McIver
Avondale University College, rob_m@avondale.edu.au
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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation
McIver, R. (2020). How Scripture and Authority Are Understood by Teachers in Adventist Schools in Australia and the Solomon Islands. In R. McIver, S. Hattingh, & P. Kilgour (Eds.), Education as Preparation for Eternity: Teachers in Seventh-day Adventist Schools in Australia and the Solomon Islands, and Their Perceptions of Mission (pp. 320-335). Cooranbong, Australia: Avondale Academic Press.
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How Scripture and Authority Are Understood by Teachers in Adventist Schools in Australia and the Solomon
Islands
Robert K. McIver
Director, Scripture Spirituality and Society Research Centre Avondale University College
The Battle for the Bible
Seventh-day Adventists (SDAs) stand squarely in the Protestant tradition, which places great emphasis on the authority of the Bible.
They are so convinced of the centrality of Scripture that the following preamble is placed in front of the 28 Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh- day Adventists (2015): “Seventh-day Adventists accept the Bible as their only creed and hold certain fundamental beliefs to be the teaching of the Holy Scriptures”.
Within Australia, Europe, and North America, SDAs’ stress on the authority of Scripture positions them as conservative Christians within the wider mix of Christians found in those regions of the world. It is natural that ideas circulating within conservative Christian groups are of interest to Adventist thought-leaders, especially ministers and teachers. Questions of the authority of Scripture are intimately tied up with the way the Bible is interpreted. And when it comes to how to interpret the Bible, there are strong voices advocating different approaches, some of which will now be explored.
Many of the current controversies surrounding biblical hermeneutics can be traced to the debates about “higher criticism”
and the “historical critical method” that became intense in the United States of America (USA) towards the end of the 1800s. The term,
discussed in continental Europe (particularly Germany), and were considered in academic circles in the United States towards the end of the nineteenth century. This set of ideas was analyzed by Dyson The Fundamentals:
A Testimony to Truth
in their widespread distribution. In the introduction to the set, it is claimed that they had been sent to “every pastor, evangelist, missionary, theological professor, theological student, Sunday school superintendent, Y.M.C.A and Y.W.C.A secretary in the English speaking world, as far as the addresses of all these can be obtained”
(Hague, 1910, p. 4).
Hague notes that Lower Criticism is a term used to describe an analysis of the ancient manuscripts of the Bible, while Higher Criticism “means … the study of the literature structure of the various books of the Bible” (Hague, 1910, p. 87). He notes that although inherently neutral, the term had become synonymous with “attacks on the Bible” for the following reasons:
Some of the most powerful exponents of the modern Higher Critical theories have been Germans, and it is notorious to what length the German fancy can go in the direction of the subjective and of the conjectural … the dominant men in the movement were men with a strong bias against the supernatural … they were men who denied the validity of miracle … men who denied the reality of prophecy … And worst of all. The Higher Critics are unanimous in the conclusion books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch] contain three species of material: (a) the probably true (b) the certainly doubtful (c) the positively spurious. (Hague, 1910, p. 90–91, 97, 103)
While Hague’s hostility toward the ideas of the higher critics is evident, he has captured the anti-supernaturalism that lies at the heart of much Higher Criticism, and the hermeneutical method on which it is based, the historical-critical method, at least as it is expressed by German writers.
Ernst Troeltsch is often cited for the clarity in which he explained the basis for the historical-critical method. For Troeltsch (1913), correlation, analogy, and criticism. Correlation here means that events should be explained in terms of historical processes and not in terms of supernatural intervention. Analogy means that history is
homogeneous and that sociological and economic models developed to explain contemporary societies are of use in explaining the ancient world. Criticism means that our judgments can only claim probability, not truth (Troeltsch, 1913, p. 2, 729–53; Hasel, 1980, p. 25–26; cf.
Hasel, 1985, p. 73–78; Ninow, 1997, p. 9–11). Inherent in Troeltsch’s approach is the a priori exclusion of supernatural intervention as an explanation of historical events.
Given the centrality of miracles in the biblical account, there is little surprise that the anti-supernatural starting point for the academic understanding of the Bible advocated by Troestsch and others provoked a considerable backlash. By the early part of the twentieth century, though, the historical-critical approach to the Bible had gained the upper hand in the major centers of theological education in the United States (Harvard University, Yale University, the University of Chicago, etc.) as well as in Germany and the United Kingdom, where much theological education took place in government- funded universities. But because the American universities were less dependent on government subsidies, there was a difference in the outcome within the United States. While theological education at the universities at Harvard, Yale, and Chicago continued to prosper, several new institutions were established independently of them to offer theological education that espoused the traditional beliefs in the reality of miracles in the Scriptures. These included such institutions as the Moody Bible Institute, Bob Jones University, Wheaton College, and Gordon College of Missions and Theology (Falwell, 1981, p.
111–112). These universities and colleges were able to draw their students from conservative Christian congregations which described themselves as fundamentalists, and who were in broad agreement
viz.:
1. “The inspiration and infallibility of Scripture.
2. The deity of Christ (including His Virgin birth).
3. The substitutional atonement of Christ’s death.
4. The literal resurrection of Christ from the dead.
5. The literal return of Christ in the Second Advent” (cited from Falwell, 1981, p. 7).
Of these, it is the concept of the infallibility of Scripture that is most relevant to the topic of this chapter, the authority of the Bible.
As Harold Lindsell expresses it in his book, The Battle for the Bible, Since Christianity is indubitably related to and rooted in the Bible, another question follows inexorably … “Is the Bible trustworthy?”
that the Bible is not at all trustworthy … The second possible view of the reliability of the Bible is that it can be trusted as truthful in all its parts. By this I mean that the Bible is infallible or inerrant. It communicates religious truth, not religious error. (1976, p. 18)
The doctrine of biblical inerrancy, then, is a way to make a strong claim for the authority of Scripture. That it is a doctrine that remains important for conservative Christian academics may be seen in the fact that inerrancy is embedded in the “Doctrinal Basis” of the American- based Evangelical Theological Society, which publishes the academic journal, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Association, which asserts:
Doctrinal Basis: The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs. God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each an uncreated person, one in essence, equal in power and glory. (www.etsjets.org/about; cf.
Graham, 2016, p. 1–15)
The Debate on Biblical Hermeneutics and Biblical Authority Within Seventh-day Adventism
As a way to interpret the Bible, the historical-critical method has received periodic but intense scrutiny within Seventh-day Adventist academic circles (McIver, 1996, p. 14–16; Spangler, 1982, p. 28–39).
While there are still some that would advocate the historical-critical method as something that can be used safely by Adventists, provided that one discards the anti-supernatural element of it (e.g., Herr, 2017), the majority of Adventists who write about it reject the historical- critical method (Davidson, 1990, p. 36–56; de Oliveira, 1991, p.
13–14; Reid, 1991, p. 69–76; Rodríguez, 2016, p. 85–97). (It should be noted that both Reid and Rodríguez have been directors of the Biblical Research Institute at the General Conference of Seventh- day Adventists). Indeed, the document, “Methods of Bible Study”, which was voted by the leadership of the SDA Church at the 1986 the grounds that,
In recent decades the most prominent method in biblical studies has been known as the historical-critical method. Scholars who use this method, as classically formulated, operate on the bases of presuppositions that, prior to studying the biblical text, reject the reliability of accounts of miracles and other supernatural events
the principle of criticism, which subordinates the Bible to human reason, is unacceptable to Adventists. (“Methods of Bible Study”, 1987, p. 22)
While the authors of this document might reject the historical- critical method, they nonetheless advocate that those that study the Bible should:
Study the context of the passage … ascertain the historical circum- stances in which the passage was written … Determine the literary type the author is using … parables, proverbs, allegories, psalms, apocalyptic prophecies … poetry … for passages employing imagery are not to be interpreted in the same manner as prose… explore the historical and cultural factors. Archeology, anthropology and history may contribute to understanding the meaning of the text. (“Methods of Bible Study”, 1987, p. 23)
Considerations of history and culture are typical of historical- critical approaches to Scripture, but those formulating the “Methods of Bible Study” document clearly felt comfortable in allowing such considerations, given that they state, “Human reason is subject to the Bible, not equal to or above it … Scripture cannot be correctly interpreted without the aid of the Holy Spirit” (“Methods of Bible Study”, 1987, p. 23). Indeed, as Roy Gane points out, all Adventists who take the interpretation of Scripture seriously consider that a better understanding of the background culture and the historical events of the Biblical passage is most helpful in interpreting the Bible. He states:
Interpretation of the biblical text should be contextual in the broadest sense. This involves taking into account and weighing carefully any textual, historical, archaeological, and culture evidence that may be relevant to a given passage. (R. Gane, 1999, p. 5)
It is probably fair to say that biblical scholars in the SDA Church believe in the genuineness of the accounts in the Bible, believe in the possibility of miracles, and believe that Jesus did rise from the dead as described in the New Testament. In sum, they believe in the authority of Scripture. Amongst their peers in the academic disciplines relating to biblical studies, they are viewed as very conservative in their approaches to the interpretation of the Bible. It is probably what lies at the root of the distrust that is often felt about the historical-critical method.
While there is general agreement on the attitude of the SDA Church and the historical-critical method, there is less unanimity about the idea that the Bible is inerrant. In an effort to demonstrate that the Bible
is without error, there are some that seek to reconcile the differences between the various passages of the Bible (e.g., see chapters by Samuel Koranteng-Pipim and Randal Younker in Holbrook & van Dolson, 1992, p. 31–67, 173–99). Others point to the small differences that may be observed between parallel accounts of the same event in the Gospels and reach different conclusions. For example, William Johnsson says,
We should speak of inspired persons rather than inspired words
… while Biblical [sic] history is accurate, since Yahweh manifests words of Jesus and the accounts of His ministry show variations and discrepancies, even as the chronologies of the Kings and Chronicles are not in perfect agreement. But in no way is the central message of the inspired writings diluted by these discrepancies. They are of a minor order; the chief thrust in every case is clear. The Scriptures are inerrant as a guide to salvation. (Johnsson 1981, p. 6; cf. Thompson, 1991, p. 123–31, 173–94, 214–36)
While ministers and theologians have vigorously debated the two positions presented, it remains to be seen how much of this discussion has been followed by the teachers in the Adventist schools in the Australian Union Conference (AUC) and the Solomon Islands Mission (SIM).
Survey Results:
Authority in Questions of Right and Wrong
Several questions in the survey addressed the questions of authority and how the teachers understood Scripture (see Chapters 4, 9 and 15 for more information about the survey and the participants who responded to it). For example, the following question relating to sources of authority with regard to questions of right and wrong was asked in three branches of the survey (Questions 48, 70, and 88, in Branches B, C, and E): “When it comes to questions of right and wrong, which of the following do you look to most for guidance?
Would you say … ? [You may choose up to two answers]”. The possible responses provided on the survey were as follows:
Religious teachings and beliefs Philosophy and reason
Practical experience and common sense Don’t know
As respondents were free to choose two of the responses, the responses were coded as follows:
1. Religion: Religious teachings and beliefs 2. Religion and philosophy
3. Religion and common sense 4. Religion and science
5. Religion and philosophy and common sense 6. Philosophy: Philosophy and reason
7. Philosophy and common cense 8. Philosophy and science
9. Common Sense: Practical experience and common sense 10. Common sense and science
12. Don’t know
Some of these options were not chosen by any participant (e.g., 5. Religion and philosophy and common sense; 7. Philosophy and common sense; 8. Philosophy and science; 10. Common sense and science). The results for the other options are reported in Table 22.1 in the four columns under the headings, “AUC Tot”, “AUC Wkly”,
“SIM Wkly”, and “SIM Tot”. The numbers in the body of Table 22.1 all express a percentage of the number of participants that answered this particular quetion (n=). The reasons for distinguishing between
“AUC Tot” and “AUC Wkly” are explained in Chapter 27. The most
“Pew”, data are provided from the 2014 “U.S. Religious Landscape Study”, which was conducted in 2007 and again in 2014 by the Pew Research Center. The wording of the question in the survey used by the teachers was derived from the question used by the Pew Research Center, with one difference: the teachers were permitted to choose two options. The “U.S. Religious Landscape Study” only permitted one option to be chosen. Hence, the results are reported for the four principle options for the Pew Research Center’s data.
Table 22.1
AUC and SIM Teachers’ Responses to the Question, “When it comes to questions of right and wrong, which of the following do you look to most for guidance?”
AUC
Tot AUC
Wkly SIM
Wkly SIM
Tot Pew Religion: Religious teachings
and beliefs 49.4 55.4 83.3 41.4 33
Common Sense: Practical
experience and common sense 36.1 32.1 12.5 8.0 45 Philosophy: Philosophy and
reason 6.7 5.8 2.1 6.9 11
Religion and philosophy 2.2 2.5 0.0 0.0
Religion and common sense 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Religion and science 1.1 1.7 0.0 0.0
Religion and philosophy and
common sense 0.6 0.8 0.0 0.0
0.6 0.0 0.0 1.1 9
Don’t know 3.3 1.7 2.1 3.4
n = 180 121 48 87
Notes on Tables 22.1 to 22.3:
1. All numbers in the table represent a percentage: n = Number of participants who answered this question
2. AUC = Australian Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventsts; SIM = Solomon Islands Mission
3. AUC Tot/SIM Tot= AUC teachers who are over 20 years of age and employed in an Adventist school or Conference or Mission
4. AUC Wkly = AUC teachers who answered “yes” to the question, “Are you a Seventh-day Adventist” and indicated that they attend church at least once a week.
See explanation in Chapter 27
5. Solomon Islands = Teachers in Adventist schools in the Solomon Islands Mission of Seventh-day Adventists
Adventists have the conviction that their religion should affect their everyday life and, true to their religious roots, a majority of teachers in Adventist schools in the AUC and SIM said that they used either religion or common sense to determine questions of right
and wrong. Interestingly enough, the option “Religion and Common Sesnse”, which was chosen by none of the teachers in the AUC and SIM schools, was the second most frequently chosen option among teachers in the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists (McIver, 2019, p. 200). The data from the Pew Research Institute indicate that 45% of North Americans use common sense to determine issues of right and wrong, while 33% of them rely on religion as the basis for their decision-making (Pew, 2015, p. 64–66, 227).
The question does not inquire about the place the Bible takes in the minds of the teachers, but given the authority that the Scriptures are given in Adventist circles, it is likely to be an important factor. After 28 Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists states, “The Holy Scriptures are the supreme, authoritative, and the infallible revelation of His will. They are the standard of character, the test of experience”. The words, “revelation of the will of God, and the test of experience”, highlight the crucial place the Bible has in determining questions of right and wrong within the SDA Church.
Survey Results: Conception of the Bible
In both Branches C and E, the following question was asked (Questions 65 and 92; the bold words are used in subsequent tables to represent each potential answer):
Read the following statements carefully, then mark next to the statement that is closest to your understanding of what the Bible is:
1. The Bible contains no more truth or wisdom than do the religious books of other world religions;
2. The Bible is the work of people who collected stories that had been created to explain the mysteries of life. It contains a great deal of wisdom about the human experience;
3. The Bible is the work of people who genuinely loved God and who wanted to share their understanding of God’s activity in the world;
4. The Bible is the work of people who were inspired by God and who represented God’s message in terms of their own place and time;
5. The Bible is the work of people who copied what God told them
by their own place and time;
6. The Bible is the work of people who were inspired by God and who, though expressing their message in terms of their own time and place, expressed eternal truths”.
The choices provided to participants summarise many of the responses that have been made in academic and non-academic circles to the challenges of the authority of the Bible, especially those growing from the skepticism regarding the biblical miracles and doubts about the authenticity of many of the biblical accounts, such as are expressed by many writers who espouse the methodology of the historical-critical method. It is true that many academics do treat the Bible no differently from the religious books associated with scriptures from other religions, is a record of different individuals’
experience of the mysteries of life, including the supernatural, and contains much wisdom (Armstrong, 2019). These are options provided for participants. By way of contrast, those that believe in the inerrancy of the Bible would be able to answer the option, “copied what God told them word for word”. Two of the options state that the Bible is inspired by God, but add the consideration that the message in represented in terms of the time and place of the writers. Such consideration is in line with the document endorsed by the administration of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, “Methods of Bible Study” (1987). The last option adds the rider that, while the Bible was expressed in terms appropriate to the time and culture of the biblical writers, it nevertheless contains eternal truths.
The responses of the participants are recorded in Table 22.2, under the headings, “AUC Tot”, “AUC Wkly”, “SIM Wkly”, and
“SIM Tot”. The numbers in Table 22.1 all express a percentage of the number of participants that answered this particular question (n=).
The reasons for distinguishing between “AUC Tot” and “AUC Wkly”
are explained in Chapter 27. The most frequently chosen options are SPD results from the 2013 Global Member Survey, in which the same question, with the same wording, was asked of participants (Gane, 2013, p. 48).
Table 22.2
AUC and SIM Teachers’ Choices of the Statement That Is Closest to Their Understanding of What the Bible Is.
AUCTot AUC
Wkly SIM
Wkly SIM
Tot 2013 SPD Inspired by God/time and
place/eternal truths 66.4 69.9 50.0 48.4 68.9 Inspired by God, represented
in terms of their own place
and time 22.6 20.4 38.9 34.7 12.6
Shared understanding of
God’s activity in the world 5.5 4.9 7.4 8.4 2.7 Copied what God told them
word for word 2.7 2.9 0.0 4.2 5.0
Contains wisdom about the
human experience 2.1 1.0 1.9 3.2 1.5
Like the religious books of
other world religions 0.7 1.0 1.9 1.1 1.3
Total 146 103 54 95 747
It is noteworthy how few of the participants chose the option, “The Bible is the work of people who copied what God told them word for time” (2.7% AUC Tot; 2.9% AUC Wkly; 0.0 SIM Wkly; 4.2% SIM Tot). This option is closest to the position which is strongly advocated by inerrantists. It was chosen by 5% of the respondents to the 2013 SPD Members survey.
By way of contrast, between 58% and 70% of the respondents agreed that the “Bible is the work of people who were inspired by God and who, though expressing their message in terms of their own time and place, expressed eternal truths”. Almost all the rest (between 20% and 39%) agreed that “The Bible is the work of people who were inspired by God and who represented God’s message in terms of their own place and time”. In other words, approximately 90% of respondents thought that the Bible was inspired, and further nuanced their answer with the observation that it was written in terms of its time and place. This being so, it is very interesting to observe that interpreted literally, word for word (see next Section).
Survey Results: Should the Bible be Read Literally?
A question that inquired whether participants considered that the Bible should be read literally, word for word, was placed in both Branches C and E (Questions 64 and 91). It was expressed as follows:
Which statement about the Bible comes closest to your own view?
The Bible is to be taken literally, word for word.
OR
Not everything in the Bible should be taken literally, word for word.
The results are reported in Table 22.3 using the conversions to title abbreviations that have already been used in Tables 22.1 and 22.2.
The numbers in the body of Table 22.3 represent percentages.
Table 22.3
AUC and SIM Teachers’ Choices of Whether to Read the Bible Literally or Not
AUCTot AUC
Wkly SIM
Wkly SIM
Tot The Bible is to be taken literally,
word for word 31.3 36.2 88.9 87.5
Not everything in the Bible
should be taken literally 68.7 63.8 11.1 12.5
n = 150 105 72 120
There is a clear difference between how the two groups of teachers answer this question. Most in the SIM would say that the Bible should be taken literally, while most in the AUC do not.
Teachers in Adventist Schools in the AUC and SIM Are Theologically Conservative but not Fundamentalist
fundamentalists, have been noted above. They were, 1. “The inspiration and infallibility of Scripture.
2. The deity of Christ (including His Virgin birth).
3. The substitutional atonement of Christ’s death.
4. The literal resurrection of Christ from the dead.
5. The literal return of Christ in the Second Advent”. (Falwell, Dobson, & Hindson, 1981, p. 7)
So, according to these criteria, are the teachers in Adventist schools in the AUC and SIM Christian Fundamentalists? Question 62g, “I believe that Jesus was born of a virgin”, was deliberately
the distinguishing characteristics of Christian Fundamentalism and is found in other surveys as well. Over 87% of teachers in the AUC and SIM strongly agreed that Jesus was born of a virgin (see Table B.62g in Appendix B). Furthermore, over 92% of teachers in the AUC and SIM agreed with the statement in Questions 62o/86g “I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (i.e., I believe in the doctrine of the Trinity)” (see Table B.62o/86g in Appendix B).
It therefore seems safe to conclude that teachers in Adventist schools in the North American Division (NAD) would believe in the deity of Christ (item 2). Over 90% of teachers agreed that Jesus will return to Earth a second time (Questions 62m/86f; see Tables B.62m/86f in Appendix B). The question does not use the term “literal return”, but given what is understood by the second coming in SDA circles, the participants would understand this question to mean a literal return participants in the survey believed in the “literal return of Christ in the Second Advent”, (item 5). There is no explicit question on the survey about the substitutional atonement of Jesus, nor about the literal resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Because the survey was already very long, and it was deemed that one might assume that Adventists believed in the resurrection of Jesus (i.e., they almost certainly would qualify on item 4), this question was not asked. It was also considered that the technical language of substitutional atonement was unlikely to have been part of the education background of teachers, even if the concept had been taught to them. Within Adventism, while there is theological discussion on the topic, most Adventists would probably agree that Jesus died in our place as an atonement for our sins. So it is likely that most of the teachers would also meet the third in the list of characteristic beliefs of Christian Fundamentalists.
It is with item number 1, “The inspiration and infallibility of Scripture”, that the teachers parted company with Christian Fundamentalists. Table 22.2 above contains a report of how the teachers understood their Bible (see also Table B.65/92 in Appendix B). Less than 4% of them chose the option that was closest in expressing the inerrancy of Scripture: “The Bible is the work of people who copied what God told them word for word, and who
way of contrast, at least 89% chose an option that included the words,
“The Bible is the work of people who were inspired by God and who represented God’s message in terms of their own place and time” (see Table 22.2). Thus we may say that most teachers would agree that the Bible is inspired; they would be unlikely to agree that it is inerrant. It would be of interest to provide a question in future surveys that used the adjective infallible in conjunction with the Bible. But it is likely that the participants in such a survey would not strictly qualify under item 1: “The inspiration and infallibility of Scripture”.
Thus, from the evidence of the responses to the survey questions, it might be concluded that teachers in Adventist schools across the AUC and SIM are not Christian fundamentalists. Their sophisticated understanding of the Bible prevents that conclusion. But they are conservative theologically when compared to many other Christians.
If they are not Christian fundamentalists, they stand near to them on the theological spectrum.
Summing Up
From the responses to the questions asked, one cannot really in the AUC and SIM of either liberal approaches to the interpretation of the Bible (as represented by the historical-critical method) or the As a group, the teachers in Adventist schools in the AUC and SIM base their moral decisions—decisions about what is right and wrong —on religion, or on religion and common sense. Many of them still read their Bibles literally, word for word; but the majority in the AUC at least are of the opinion that not everything in the Bible should be understood literally. As a group they believe the Bible is written by place.
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Eternity: Teachers in Seventh-day Adventist Schools in Australia and
the Solomon Islands, and Their Perceptions of Mission
Edited by
Robert K. McIver, Sherene J. Hattingh,
and Peter W. Kilgour
© 2020 all rights reserved Co-published by
Avondale Academic Press P O Box 19
Cooranbong NSW 2265 Australia
and
General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists 12501 Old Columbia Pike
Silver Spring MD 20904 United States of America
Cover Design: FreeRange Design (Miriam Kingston)
Layout: FreeRange Design (Miriam Kingston) & Robert K. McIver Copy Editors: Howard Fisher, Diane Roy
A record of this book is held at the National Library of Australia ISBN: 978-0-6484704-5-8 (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-6484704-6-5 (Kindle eBook)
Chapters 5–7, 10, 13–14, 16, and versions of Chapters 9 and 15 of this book have previously appeared in, Robert K. McIver & Peter W. Kilgour, (Eds.). (2017). Per- ceptions of mission held by teachers in Seventh-day Adventist schools in Australia and the Solomon Islands. Cooranbong, NSW: Avondale Academic Press. Chapters 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, and 12 of that book were refereed (these are equivalent to Chapters 5, 7, 10, 13, 14, and 16 of the current book).
The following chapters, new in the second edition of this book, have been academi- cally refereed: Chapters 8, 11–12, 17–18, 24, and 26. Refereed versions (with North American Data) of Chapters 19–23, and 25 have previously appeared in Robert K.
McIver & Sherene J. Hattingh, (Eds.). (2019). Educating for service and mission:
Teachers in Seventh-day Adventist Schools in North America and their perceptions of mission. Cooranbong, NSW; Silver Spring, MD: Avondale Academic Press and
